The Knights&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp

SAUSAGE-SELLER For a rascal of your kidney, you shout rarely! Well! I am ready to
die if I do not prove that you have accepted more than forty minae
from the Mitylenaeans.
SECOND SEMI-CHORUS(singing) This indeed may be termed talking. Oh, benefactor of the human
race, proceed and you will be the most illustrious of the Greeks.
You alone shall have sway in Athens, the allies will obey you, and,
trident in hand, you will go about shaking and overturning
everything to enrich yourself. But, stick to your man, let him not go;
with lungs like yours you will soon have him finished.
CLEON No, my brave friends, no, you are running too fast; I have done
a sufficiently brilliant deed to shut the mouth of all enemies, so
long as one of the bucklers of Pylos remains.
SAUSAGE-SELLER Of the bucklers! Hold! I stop you there and I hold you fast. For
if it be true that you love the people, you would not allow these to
be hung up with their rings; but it's with an intent you have done
this. Demos, take knowledge of his guilty purpose; in this way you
no longer can punish him at your pleasure. Note the swarm of young
tanners, who really surround him, and close to them the sellers of
honey and cheese; all these are at one with him. Very well! you have
but to frown, to speak of ostracism and they will rush at night to
these bucklers, take them down and seize our granaries.
DEMOS Great gods! what! the bucklers retain their rings! Scoundrel!
ah! to long have you had me for your dupe, cheated and plaved with me!
CLEON But, dear sir, never you believe all he tells you. Oh! never
will you find a more devoted friend than me; unaided, I have known how
to put down the conspiracies; nothing that is hatching in the city
escapes me, and I hasten to proclaim it loudly.
SAUSAGE-SELLER You are like the fishers for eels; in still waters they catch
nothing, but if they thoroughly stir up the slime, their fishing is
good; in the same way it's only in troublous times that you line
your pockets. But come, tell me, you, who sell so many skins, have you
ever made him a present of a pair of soles for his slippers? and you
pretend to love him!
DEMOS No, he has never given me any.
SAUSAGE-SELLER That alone shows up the man; but I, I have bought you this pair of
shoes; accept them.
(He gives DEMOS the shoes; DEMOS puts them on.)DEMOS None ever, to my knowledge, has merited so much from the people;
you are the most zealous of all men for our country and for my toes.
CLEON Can a wretched pair of slippers make you forget all that you owe
me? Is it not I who curbed the pederasts by erasing Gryttus' name from
the lists of citizens?
SAUSAGE-SELLER Ah! noble Inspector of Arses, let me congratulate you. Moreover,
if you set yourself against this form of lewdness, this pederasty,
it was for sheer jealousy, knowing it to be the school for orators.
But you see this poor Demos without a cloak and that at his age too!
so little do you care for him, that in mid-winter you have not given
him a garment with sleeves. Here, Demos, here is one, take it!
(He gives DEMOS a cloak; DEMOS puts it on.)DEMOS This even Themistocles never thought of; the Piraeus was no
doubt a happy idea, but I think this tunic is quite as fine an